July 6, 2017 – Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

Today, simplify and “de-mystify” recovery with three basic but essential concepts: choice, consequences, and personal responsibility. Discarding all the reasons I can produce to “justify” my drinking – I have a compulsion that compels me to feed it with anger, fear, resentment, loneliness, grief. In the end, drinking comes down to an essential truth: it is my choice and mine alone. And my choice to drink, as with all other choices I make, brings consequences, and with those consequences comes responsibility to the consequences. I thus have a simple choice, namely if I want to be responsible to the consequences of my choice to drink. For me, the past consequences of drinking grew progressively harsher, costlier and never less. And because now I do not want to face the consequences, I will not be responsible to them by making a simple but obvious choice: don’t drink. Today, I have the choice to drink or not. I pick the latter because the first bears consequences that are too heavy for me. And our common journey continues. Step by step. – Chris M., 2017